S A R A H D A R E R L I T T M A N

Scholastic Press / New York

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Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Darer Littman

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either

the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is

entirely coincidental.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018009413

ISBN 978-1-338-17748-0

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 19 20 21 22

Printed in the U.S.A. 23

First edition, October 2018

Book design by Nina Goffi

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1

C H A P T E R O N E

“Life seems so much better in black-and-white.”

I draw this conclusion as the end credits to Casablanca roll.

“I mean, even war looks better,” I continue, picking through

the remnants of the popcorn bowl. My favorites are the cracked

but not fully popped kernels. “Not to mention so much more

romantic.”

“Romantic?” my best friend, Farida, says with one graceful

eyebrow raised. I wish I could do that. “What’s romantic about

Rick and Ilsa not being together in the end? It’s so sad. I mean, I’d

rather it be like Mockingjay. You know, like it’s not all rainbows

and butterflies and happily ever after because they’re both affected

by the war they lived through, but they’re together and they’re find-

ing whatever happiness they can.”

It’s true, the two main characters in the film who are sooooo

in love go off in different directions at the end. I guess I can see

the argument for that not being romantic. But still . . . I was defi-

nitely shipping Ilsa and Rick.

Farida got pretty into the movie, especially during the scene

where the refugees in Rick’s café started singing La Marseillaise,

the French national anthem, as an act of resistance to drown out

Nazi officers singing some German song. Farida’s parents came to

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America as refugees from Iraq after the Gulf War, or as we call it

in my house, the war where Mom and Dad met, so I totally get why

that’s a powerful moment in the movie.

I have to admit to swallowing a lump in my throat once or

twice. Even our other best friend Ken brushed his sleeve across

his eyes, but he swore it was just allergies. It was all so brave and

patriotic.

“Sure they’re not together, but they’ll always have Paris!” Ken

says, quoting one of the most famous lines from the film and

clutching his heart dramatically. I swear, Ken should be on stage.

I tell him that all the time. He says he prefers to remain behind

the scenes.

“But that’s just memories,” Farida says. “They’re never going to

see each other again.”

“Yeah, well, Rick’s going off to fight. He might die,” I point

out. “But at least now he’s going to die knowing that she loved

him, I guess.”

“Die!” Farida exclaims. “Stella, come on. The ending was

tragic enough. Do you have to make it worse by making me think

about Rick dying?”

Ken gives me a Why did you have to go there? look and I reply

with a What? look.

I feel bad, but in wartime, dying is always a possibility. I’m

from a military family, so I know that all too well. My brother,

Rob, left the marines for civilian life a month and a half ago after

serving two tours in Afghanistan. During both of Rob’s

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deployments, the fear of him not coming home was constantly at

the back of my mind—and often front and center.

Now that he’s home . . . well, I’m here with my friends trying

really hard not to think about that. Thinking about Rob is a major

downer these days.

“Sorry, Farida,” I say. “But that’s kind of what happens in war.”

I bite my lip, remembering about all the times I’ve freaked out

about my brother dying.

“I know, Stella. But he’s home now,” she says, getting what I’m

not saying. “You don’t have to worry anymore.”

That’s what you think.

I don’t tell anyone, even my best friends, that although my

brother is back in our house physically, he’s not back. Not really.

At least, not the same brother he was before this last deployment.

It was bad enough after the first deployment. He’d joined the

combat club. My parents were already members. They both served

in the Gulf War, Dad in the 3d Marines and Mom as a navy sur-

geon. That makes me the odd one out in the Walker family—the

only one who hasn’t served our country.

It’s even worse now, though. This time he’s so different from

the brother who left it’s like he was possessed by an alien from one

of his favorite sci-fi movies while he was over there. But I came

here to forget about that for a while, which I’m obviously not doing

very well.

“Yeah,” I say, shrugging. “So on a scale of one to ten, how do

you rate Casablanca for the Keeping It Reel rankings?”

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“I’m thinking a nine,” Ken says. “It’s got meme-worthy lines,

great acting, and I’m officially in love with Ingrid Bergman, even

though she died before I was born. Does that make me weird?”

“It’s okay, we already know you’re weird,” I tell him. “It’s part

of your charm.”

“Gee, thanks,” Ken says, tossing a pillow at me. “You guys are

the best.”

I laugh and catch the pillow, then ask Farida, “So what’s your

rating?”

“I don’t know,” she says slowly. “I loved it for all the reasons

Ken said but . . .” She fiddles with the corner of the pillow she’s

holding on her lap.

“But what?” Ken asks.

“Well, it’s supposed to be Casablanca. In Morocco. Which is

in North Africa,” Farida says. “But everyone in the film is white—

except for Sam, the piano player.”

Ken gives me a quick glance from the corner of his eye.

I wonder if he noticed. I didn’t. And that makes me feel like a

bad friend.

“Well, it was filmed in Hollywood in 1942,” Ken says. “I looked

up all this stuff about it before we watched. You know the scene

where they sang La Marseillaise and people were crying? A lot of

the actors were actual refugees from Nazi Germany, so they weren’t

pretending to cry.”

“Okay fine, but . . . are you telling me that they could only

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find one person of color in all of 1942 Hollywood?” Farida asks.

“Just one?”

“Well yeah, that does seem kind of ridiculous when you think

about it,” I admit. “I feel terrible that I watched the whole movie

without even noticing that.”

“That’s because white’s your default,” Farida says. “So it’s

not going to seem out of the ordinary for you the way it does

for me.”

I wonder how many other things are “default” for me, but Ken

is still arguing the race issue.

“Yeah, but this movie was filmed before civil rights and all

that,” Ken says. “It’s a film of its time. We have to judge it in its

historical context.”

“If you’re telling me that its ‘historical context’ ”—Farida does

air quotes with her fingers—“means that it was whitewashed,

then okay, fine.”

“You’re right,” I say. “I guess I was too caught up in the story to

notice. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not like I want to be your travel agent for an extended

white guilt trip,” Farida says, flopping back on the couch. “It is a

great story. But . . . I can’t turn off noticing when something’s not

the way it’s supposed to be like you can. Just like I can’t turn off

having brown skin and dark hair and eyes.”

“And like I was born wearing white girl goggles,” I admit.

“Look, I get what you’re saying,” Ken says. “And I get that it’s

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wrong. But what are we supposed to do about it?” He sounds

annoyed and defensive. “This movie was made before we were

born,” he continues. “Before our parents were born. I’m not even

sure if my grandparents were born yet.”

I hope this doesn’t turn into an argument, like it often does

when Farida points out something to do with racism that the two

of us have both completely missed.

If I’m honest, I have to confess that the first time it happened,

I was pretty defensive, too. I took it personally, because I felt like

my best friend was calling me a racist.

It was in fifth grade, before we started hanging out with Ken.

We were having a sleepover at Farida’s house and flipping through

channels to see what was on TV. Aladdin the cartoon movie was

on the Disney Channel.

“Oh, let’s watch that!” I said.

“Ugh, no way,” Farida said, skipping past it. “It’s racist.”

I stared at her, openmouthed. “What’s racist about Aladdin?”

“Well, they sing about the Middle East: ‘It’s barbaric, but hey,

it’s home,’ ” Farida said. “How would you like if they sang that

about America in a Disney movie?”

“That’s different,” I said without a second thought.

Farida stared at me, hurt evident in her brown eyes. “Different?

How?” she asked me. “Do you think I’m barbaric? And my

parents?”

“No, I—”

“What about Yusef? He’s only seven but is he barbaric?”

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I was taken aback by how angry and upset she was. I was too

clueless to understand both what was wrong with Aladdin and

why what I’d said was hurtful. I mean, I’m still clueless some-

times, obviously, but I’m trying to be better.

What I felt back then was defensive. Like my best friend sud-

denly thought I was a terrible person.

“Wait, so you think I’m horrible?”

“I didn’t before,” she said. “But right now you sound it.”

I was so upset I almost called my parents to pick me up to take

me home. It was Mrs. El-Rahim who talked us through it. She

came in to bring us some baklava and saw that Farida and I were

sitting on opposite sides of the room, not talking to each other and

looking miserable. Mrs. El-Rahim helped me understand where

Farida was coming from. She explained to me that Farida didn’t

bring up these things because she thought I was a horrible person,

but so that I could understand her better. She was trying to help

open my eyes to things that I might not notice because I’m from

the dominant culture. It was because we were friends that Farida

felt that she could talk to me about such difficult things, so we

could be better friends, even closer.

Then Farida said how hurtful it was when I said, “That’s dif-

ferent,” and I started feeling defensive again, but Mrs. El-Rahim

talked us both through that, too.

I’m not saying it’s easy to have these conversations, or that my

first reaction isn’t always to be on the defensive and try to argue it

like Ken is doing now.

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Ken wants to work in TV or movies someday, and he’s really

into the history of film. He has an almost encyclopedic memory of

old movies, which he supplements with rapid use of IMDb and

Google to launch into the historical context defense whenever

Farida makes any comment about lack of genuine representation.

It’s true there’s historical context. But one thing I’ve learned

from being friends with Farida is that still doesn’t make it any

better.

Farida has gone silent. Ken and I might feel uncomfortable

when we’re called on having white as our default, but Farida has

to live with that being the way things are in pretty much every

movie she sees and every book she reads. And in her everyday life,

which is way worse.

“I just want you to notice,” she says finally, sitting up. “That’s

all. I’m not an idiot. I know you can’t go back and change

what’s wrong with a classic movie—well, unless Dr. Who left the

TARDIS in Argleton somewhere. But you can change whether you

notice it or not. And you can recognize that Hollywood is still

making the same mistakes today. For every Black Panther movie,

there’s, like, ten white Spider-Man movies.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence and I’m holding my breath,

hoping that Ken doesn’t keep trying to persuade her with “histori-

cal context” and just hears her.

“Oh,” he says. “Fair enough.”

I exhale a sigh of relief.

“And not just with movies,” Farida adds.

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“Got it,” Ken says.

“And even . . .” Farida hesitates.

“And even what?” I ask.

“Well, like, being more aware of stuff that’s happening at

school. You don’t seem to have noticed that there’s more than the

usual level of we don’t like brown people crap going on since school

started this year.”

I glance over at Ken to see if he knows what Farida means, but

he looks just as clueless as I feel. We’ve only been back at school

for, like, a week. What could we have missed?

“Like . . . what?” he asks.

“Well, did you hear that yesterday, when Dev Iyer showed Isaac

Taylor the schematic for his latest robotics project, Scooter Douglas

reported him to the school resource officer for building a bomb?”

“What?” I exclaim. “That’s ridiculous. Between Dev Iyer and

Jenny Moss, our school has won practically every robotics prize

going for the last two years!”

“You know that. I know that. Anyone who knows Dev or reads

the school newspaper beyond the sports section knows that,”

Farida says. “But there are a lot of people at school who aren’t in

either category. Do you think Scooter would have reported Jenny

Moss for building a bomb?”

“Not likely,” Ken says. “And that’s wrong.”

“Knowing Scooter, he’d probably make some stupid crack

about how girls aren’t capable of building bombs,” I say. “Or robots,

for that matter. Even though he can’t do either himself.”

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“Scooter ended up getting himself a two-day suspension,”

Farida says.

“Serves him right,” I say.

“That’s not all. Some of Chris Abbott’s friends are taking his

dad’s anti-immigrant stuff to heart,” Farida says. “Wade Boles and

Jed Landon told Yonas Ambaye he should go back to his country the

other day. Yonas said Chris was right there with them. He might not

have said the actual words, but he didn’t do anything to stop them.”

Chris’s dad is the mayor of our town, and Chris is my greatest

rival at debate club. His dad is running for governor of our state on

a campaign that appears to consist of telling us that the state’s

economy is a mess and he’s the only one who can fix it, and that

immigrants and refugees are to blame. Chris and I don’t agree on

very much. But Chris is smart, which is more than I can say for

some of the guys he hangs around with.

“No way!” I exclaim.

“Yes way,” she says. “Like, what, brown people can’t be born in

the US? Yonas was born here in Virginia.”

“I haven’t heard anything like that,” Ken says.

Farida doesn’t say anything, but her silence speaks volumes.

“Wait . . . is this another thing I’m not noticing?” he asks.

“Well, it’s not like they’re going to say any of that stuff to you,”

Farida says. “But if they say it in front of you, I hope you will

notice.”

“Of course I’d notice,” Ken says. He sounds really offended.

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“But will you say something?” Farida asks.

“Of course we will,” I assure her. “You’re our friend. We’ve got

your back.”

“Not just if it’s me,” she says. “If it’s anyone.”

“Well . . . yeah,” he says slowly. “Anyone.”

“Wrong is wrong,” I say.

Farida leans back against the sofa cushions and smiles. “It’s

good to hear you say that,” she says.

I keep thinking about Chris and his friends telling Yonas to go

back to his country when his country is this country. Where do

they get off? I want to talk to Mom and Dad about it when I get

home, but as soon as I walk in the front door, I can tell some-

thing’s wrong.

Clue #1: Our dog, Peggy, doesn’t greet me like she usually

would. Clue #2: Mom and Dad are sitting close together at the

kitchen table, speaking in low, clipped voices.

The tension is suffocating. I want to turn and go back Farida’s,

but she’s working a shift at her family’s restaurant, Tigris, this

evening. So I force myself to walk into the kitchen.

“Hey, I’m home,” I say in a tentative bid for my parents’

attention.

“Hi, Stella,” Mom says. “Dinner will be ready at six thirty.

Why don’t you go do your homework?”

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In other words, get lost and let me finish talking to Dad. I’m

about to do what she tells me to, even though it’s Saturday and my

homework’s done, when I notice Dad’s icing his hand.

“What happened? Did you hurt yourself?”

Dad doesn’t answer. If anything, his lips compress into an

even thinner line, as if I’m some kind of enemy interrogator instead

of his kid just wanting to know what’s going on.

“Can someone tell me what’s up?” I say. “Because it’s pretty

obvious something’s not right around here.”

The seconds of silence before Mom finally opens her mouth

to speak feel like an eternity.

“Your brother has been having a difficult time since he got

back,” she says.

“Yeah. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I really don’t need snark on top of everything else right now,

Stella,” Mom snaps.

“Sorry,” I mumble, but that’s a lie. I’m annoyed, not sorry. “So

what’s his problem?”

“We don’t know exactly,” Mom says. “And until we can get him

to admit he’s got a problem, we’re struggling to figure out how to

get him the help he obviously needs.”

“So you’re telling me I just have to suffer until he figures it

out?” I say.

“Stella, the world doesn’t revolve around you,” Dad says. “It’s

something we all have to learn sooner or later. You might as well

learn right now.”

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My parents have no clue. They just don’t.

“Dad, I already know that. In this family, the world revolves

around Rob.”

With that, I storm out of the room and head upstairs. I get

better answers from stupid Siri than my parents these days.

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Hey, Jason—

How’s reentry to the real world treating you?

I know it’s only been a few months, but it hasn’t exactly been

a breeze here in the land of Rob Walker.

My mom wanted to throw me a big welcome home party, and

she got all hurt and upset when I said no. She’s a Desert Storm vet

herself, but she didn’t seem to understand why I would rather

get a filling without Novocain than be around a lot of people

asking me what it was like over there. Even Dad didn’t understand.

I don’t know, maybe their war was different? Dad came home an

injured hero. He’s got a Purple Heart and a huge ugly scar to show

for his wartime service.

Sometimes I almost think I’d rather be in a firefight than back

here having to make small talk about stupid crap—except for the

part where one of my buddies doesn’t make it.

Pretty messed up, huh?

When I was over there, all I could think about was being back

here, and now that I’m back here . . . I feel like a Star Wars fan at

a Star Trek convention.

Like I don’t have any idea how to “Live long and prosper.”

Yeah, I know. I can hear you laughing right now and saying

“There’s a reason we called you ThunderGeek, Rob. Emphasis on

geek.”

To top it all off I saw Sandra last week. Remember that girl I

thought I was going to come back to? She was at church with her

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fiancé, Scott. Yeah, she’s gonna marry the guy who stole her heart

while I was over there dodging bullets and IEDs. Isn’t that special?

Sandra told me I looked well and said she was happy I was back

safely. No thanks to you, I was thinking the whole time, remembering

how messed up I was the day I got her Dear John letter.

Scotty boy and I shook hands, and it was all very civilized

’cause we were at church, even though I wanted to punch him for

taking away the imagined future that had helped keep me going.

Well, enough of me complaining. What have I got to complain

about? I’m not still stuck in Walter Reed like Travis, learning how

to walk again on prosthetic legs.

Or dead like Reyes.

Anyway, how are you doing?

Hope it’s smoother sailing at your end.

ThunderGeek out.

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